"Is it forthisthat you propose to fling away the ancient heritage bequeathed to us by the architects of our magnitude and renown?" – Winston Churchill

WAS CHURCHILL A "HATER"? Sounded angry. Almost "inappropriate" by modern standards. He delivered the quote above at a Tory party caucus, in the early thirties. A writer asked him if he had improvised that line on his feet, and he said:

"Improvised be damned. I thought of it this morning in my bath and I wish now I hadn't wasted it on this crowd!"

His own party had no program but appeasement, and students at Oxford were turning against King and country [and God]. But leaving aside the subject of War and Peace (a long story) until next time, the point is that "now is the time for all alleged good men to come to the country's aid, not to impugn really good men – nor impute imagined motives, like today's campus snowflakes and brown shirts do.

"Donald Trump is part of a long and shamefultraditionin American politics. Our history is full of cynical and vicious demagogues who exploit the fears and frustrations of voters . . . Trump wildly exaggerates when he claims to speak for a 'silent majority' of Americans . . " – Cokie and Steve Roberts ("Haters like Trump reflect history . . and are wrong," August 26, 2016)

I didn't intend to revisit the campaign but something came over me. I guess it was the 5/21/45 LIFE magazine I was just given ("Part I of a Close-up" by Chas. Murphy and John Davenport). The first word in Winston was "win" and Winnie said:

"We see our [country] as doubtful of its mission and no longer confident about its principles,infirm on purpose,drifting to and fro with the tides on a deeply disturbed ocean."

He wasn't talking about global warming (or too much salt in our diet, etc). Science now says that a low-salt diet may give you four times the chance of heart disease. Anyway, the mainstream media this fall was focused on "offensive words," not the issues such as war and peace. Four hundred thousand dead in Syria? Millions of refugees out in the cold? No big deal; let's give hot cocoa, coloring books, play-dough, and pet therapy as part of grief counseling on campus. Why? Because for the first time in their lives someone said NO to the snowflakes.

"All lives matter" and "Make America great again" and "Suck it up" are now equated with HATE CRIMES and could get you "investigated." Sorry about the caps. The red Make America Great Again caps.

The real haters, the anti-Christian haters, have not yet begun to fight. Bibles in the capitol building? Verboten! Give them 'Safe Spaces' or they will hold their breaths. The other day at the UW-Madison, at the anti-Shapiro demon-stration, they chanted "SAFETY!" ["When they shall say "Peace and safety, look out!"].

Mrs. Clinton said that Christians will just have to change their thinking, as if she gave much thought to that. Trump got 80 percent of the evangelical vote, and the so-called "social justice" warriors will want to get even. But in the end, God wins.

"When the author of the play comes on stage, the play is over." – author unknown

Bottom line, our current President talks about "peaceful transition" while simultaneously giving encouragement to the campus brown shirts who confronted Ben Shapiro.

"During the 1930s Churchill wrote trifles for newspapers and magazines, gambles furiously at Monte Carlo . . all too often disregarding the tips of his American friend Bernie Baruch, who urged him to stick to his pen . . These have been called the wilderness years, but Churchill going down hill was equal to most men at the peak of their careers."

Fast forward 70 years or so, and we have chosen a former casino owner as leader of the Free World. History does rhyme, doesn't it? More to come.

P.S. In the nick of time for this column, I received a letter from a writer in prison, who says, "I have been asked several times over the past week if a Donald Trump presidency scares me. The answer is not at all. What does scare me is hate and division amongst We The People of the United States. So, as long as from here and now Donald Trump makes efforts to unite people and does his best to make sure that the opening paragraph of the Constitution, and the "Justice, Tranquility, Common Defence, General Welfare, and the Blessing of Liberty to Ourselves and Our Posterity" – that it was created to provide, define, and protect – will guide him as a leader." [thanks, Eugene]

A little boy was standing in the garden, and the sun broke through the clouds. "Look mother," he said. "God is smiling on me."

He went to college and put his mother's Faith on the shelf. He went on to live a worldly life, a life of men-pleasing (and woman pleasing). After his mother's death he was reading her diary and came upon this line:

"Today when I came out into the garden my son said to me, 'Look! God is smiling on me!"

He became a changed man. A changed man instantly. The past be damned.

PPS: I recently gave a talk on things we don't pray for. Things the Savior Himself told us to pray for, such as our enemies. That was just before the election, and I said "The people who are supporting Hillary ought to be praying for Trump and the people who are for Trump ought to be praying for Hillary." Real Christians were praying forboth. And still are!

Now that we are between election day and Thanksgiving, can't we all get along – even for one day?

"They curse us, and we bless, they persecute us, and we submit to it; they slander us, and we humbly make our appeal. We are treated as the scum of the earth, the dregs of humanity." – Paul to the Corinthians (New English Bible)

"When He was reviled, He reviled not again. It is for you to follow in His steps." -Peter, to the tribes scattered in Asia Minor (KJV and NEB)

Curtis Dahlgren

Curtis Dahlgren is semi-retired in southern Wisconsin, and is the author of "Massey-Harris 101." His career has had some rough similarities to one of his favorite writers, Ferrar Fenton... (more)

Curtis Dahlgren is semi-retired in southern Wisconsin, and is the author of "Massey-Harris 101." His career has had some rough similarities to one of his favorite writers, Ferrar Fenton. In the intro to The Fenton Bible, Fenton said:

"I was in '53 a young student in a course of education for an entirely literary career, but with a wider basis of study than is usual. . . . In commerce my life has been passed. . . . Indeed, I hold my commercial experience to have been my most important field of education, divinely prepared to fit me to be a competent translator of the Bible, for it taught me what men are and upon what motives they act, and by what influences they are controlled. Had I, on the other hand, lived the life of a Collegiate Professor, shut up in the narrow walls of a library, I consider that I should have had my knowledge of mankind so confined to glancing through a 'peep-hole' as to make me totally unfit for [my life's work]."

In 1971-72 Curtis did some writing for the Badger Herald and he is listed as a University of Wisconsin-Madison "alumnus" (loosely speaking, along with a few other drop-outs including John Muir, Charles Lindbergh, Frank Lloyd Wright and Dick Cheney). [He writes humor, too.]